Perspective workshops

This time we were given a short script and told to shoot the scene two ways - one where the camera was inside the space between the characters and the second one where the camera was behind the characters (over the shoulder). Choosing the perspective (inside or outside) creates different feels.

Being inside the space makes the viewer feel involved in the conversation. It also makes the conversation between the characters feel a bit more personal and intimate.

Taking the outside perspective approach makes the viewer an observer and the whole situation less intimate.

Next day we were handed the same script just told to film it on location instead of the studio we were filming before.

I decided to film it in the little kitchen we have in our baseroom. Maybe they're flatmates that don't really know each other well (let's ignore the writing on the cabnet). I wanted to show that they get more personal when they start talking about what person A (Jess) does for living thus getting inside of the space between them and once person B (Lauren) makes fun of A's upbringing they get less personal. From technical side, I found it to be difficult to film in such a small space and even though we were told not to cram up against the walls, I still ended up being pressed against one in order to get a shot.

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DIRECTIONS

The magic 2 every director has to think about is: 1) what's in front of the camera 2) where's the camera positioned. It's important to read the script and break it down to questions: How? - style, mise-en-scene, mood. Who? - cast, crew, collaborators. Where? - locations, set. What? - production, costume, sound design, editing. Key director moments: How you pesent the character. Where you set the story. How you position the light. How you edit the story (rhythm, tone, mood). For our first Directions unit lecture we had to get into groups and have a go at directing a short scene. I found it to be very difficult to direct my DP instead of handling it myself. I ended up with a lot of spare shots I didn't need or couldn't use (mainly because it was hard to get the ball of paper to land into the bin) but the end result didn't disappoint me.

Camera workshop (coverage)

In one of our camera workshops we learned about the importance of coverage. It doesn't matter that in the end we won't use all of the footage and maybe even end up using just few shots, it's important to have multiple shots from diferent angles so that we would have options while editing. During the workshop we had two exercises. One of which was "The Chair": It ended up being pretty short video and I ended up not using half of the footage I got for it. For next exercise we were given scripts and had to interpret it in our own way. While editing I wished I would have filmed few more close up shots and to have actually filmed the whole scene from fixed camera positions.

Studio Idea

Personally, I found it really difficult to come up with an interesting studio production idea. But because "one idea is not enough" (Brown and Duthie, 2010) I came up with 3 initial ideas: 1) Guess the song type of game show, but instead of guessing pop songs, the contestants would have to guess classical music. I got this idea from a game my friends and I loved to play and the way my music teacher used to test my class. 2) Travel guide about how to make the most of your trip, places worth visiting and places that are overrated and not worth your time. I got this idea from my sister who travels a lot and from the way she does loads of research about each and every place she visits. 3) Debate/Game show where 2 groups of people debate about nerdy topics ( whats better Marvel or DC, which Doctor was the best etc.). The idea comes from noticing how much rivalry there is between comic book lovers and overall 'nerds'. I feel like this idea is the stronge...

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